Addictive indie computer game Minecraft was knocked off it's little block wheels yesterday apparently by a group of self-identifying disenfranchised Minecraft players demanding more updates from the game's creator.

Developer Notch writes that the game's servers are getting hammered by a distributed denial of service, or DDOS, attack.

"A real world example would be running up to the cashier at a super market and paying in small coins, counting every single one really slowly, then finding out at the end you didn't have enough in the first place," Notch wrote on his Tumblr today. "The "Distributed" means it's done from a lot of places at the same time, so it's much harder to simply deny access to the clients that do that. Usually this is done via computers infected with trojans, so people participate in this without even knowing they're doing it.

Advertisement

"As to why minecraft.net is being targeted, I'm not sure."

A post on 4chan claiming responsibility for the attack says that the group launched the DDOS because they want more updates from Notch. They also point out they are not active 4chan members or people from rival games.

Here's the full statement. Do keep in mind we have no way of knowing whether these really are the people behind the ongoing attack.

Minecraft is currently experiencing a stimulation provided by us.

It's purpose is to send Notch a clear message of how the future of minecraft will turn out unless he gets to work, namely by influencing the amount of sales taking place, due to the attacks.

Start providing your customers with the updates that you promise them.

We have roughly 83,000 bots available, and preserved for this seizure, we could if we wanted to keep this going for weeks, however we have decided to give it a week, and see whether or not your attitude, and commitment will change, we believe it will when money stops rolling in for the time being...

anyhow, no we're not from roblox, or any other minecraft clone, not to mention none of us have been around 4chan for years, and nor has any real 4channers for that matter, its all newfags now, and has been for quite a few years."

Is the official quote. I don't know the origin of the quote, but it is happening.

So if you're missing your daily Minecraft fix, just keep in mind that you can apparently blame other Minecraft fans for the problem.